70. Justice in Flux: The Moral Challenges of Water and Energy Infrastructures
Udo Pesch, Delft University of Technology; Nynke van Uffelen, TU Delft; Karen Moesker, PhD candidate
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
To cope with the challenges of climate change, new energy and water infrastructures need to be developed. The moral consequences of these infrastructures prompt us to account for principles of justice in their development. A problem is that most used justice principles have a static character, while new infrastructures are found in a moral context that is ‘in flux’.
New infrastructures bring about uncertain outcomes that will impact the distribution between ills and benefits. In this, justice means that ‘everyone gets what’s due’, but what that means however can be understood differently and will also be applied differently in different contexts. It is also important to note that protests against new infrastructures usually express values and concerns that emerge only once they are in development. As such we need to develop conditions for justice that can account for such a dynamic moral context.
In line with the theme of the conference, it is especially relevant to look at the historical injustices that persist in colonial practices. Though new infrastructures may forward new technical solutions, they still tend to reproduce wrongs like inequality, marginalization, misrecognition, exploitation, and corruption. For instance, the energy domain may discard fossil fuels, but supply chains now are shifted to scarce materials mined in the global South.
For our panel, we invite papers that contribute empirically or theoretically to the idea of ‘justice in flux’, so to increase our capacity to understand and pursue it.
